Bust the costs budget in an action in which the court has made a costs management order (CMO) under Civil Procedure Rule (CPR) 3.15? To be as certain as you can be that any excess above the agreed or last approved costs budget will be recovered at a subsequent detailed assessment under CPR 47.14, what should you do?
The way witness statements are prepared for trials in the Business and Property Courts is set to change substantially, if proposals in a new draft Practice Direction (PD) and Appendix are adopted.
The proposals arise out of the work of the Witness Evidence Working Group, set up in 2018 to consider possible reforms. The Working Group’s report was published in December 2019, and made various recommendations, including that an authoritative statement of best practice should be prepared. A draft of that statement has now been prepared by the Working Group, in the form of a draft PD 57AC and Appendix, and was published in advance of the Commercial Court’s first online seminar on 7 September 2020. The draft will be considered in due course by the Business and Property Courts Board and the Civil Procedure Rule Committee.
In Traxys Europe SA v Sodexmines Nigeria Limited and Basem El Ali, Teare J provided helpful guidance on how the court will balance the burden of proof and assess the usual competing factors when determining the forum conveniens for a claim. The court also considered how exclusive jurisdiction clauses may apply to a contracting party’s alter ego.